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Press Release - Friday, June 23, 2006
Royal Pavilion Gardens
The landscaped gardens that surround the Royal Pavilion have been recently restored to their former Regency glory. Today, just as in their heyday, they offer a rare oasis of calm right in the centre of the city.
John Nash's Regency Gardens
The grounds, relatively modest for a private royal residence, were acquired over a number of decades as the Prince Regent expanded his estate. In 1793 the Prince and his neighbour the Duke of Marlborough were granted permission to enclose the land in front of their properties in return for the construction of a new sewer. This land became the eastern lawns. Their western equivalent was acquired piecemeal between 1795 and 1819 and included the Dairy Field, part of the original farm on which the Marine Pavilion had been built, and Promenade Grove, the town's first pleasure garden. Further land was granted to the Crown in 1813 and 1815, and by the time John Nash came to draw up his plans for the Prince's new Pavilion, he had an estate of some seven acres (2.8 hectares) at his disposal. Nash created the illusion of greater acreage by making the carriage drives and paths meander around the enclosure, and framing a series of views with thickets of shrubbery and trees.
The gardens were conceived as a royal pleasure ground to complement Nash's romantic vision for the Regent’s oriental palace. They also reflected a revolution in landscape gardening that began in the mid 18th century and reached a peak at the height of the English Romantic movement. Curves, fluid forms and natural planting schemes were designed to imitate the picturesque in nature, and replaced the rigid formality and manicured symmetry of the French baroque that had dominated garden design in the previous century. A revolt against the prescriptive rules of classicism, this new design philosophy heralded a return to nature. For the first time herbaceous plants, bulbs, annuals, deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs were planted together in the same bed to create ‘pictures’ of contrasting colour and form that would remain eye-catching all year round.
The planting for Nash’s scheme began on the estate in 1816, concurrent with the building of the Pavilion itself. It was undertaken with local labour, supervised by the Royal gardener William Townsend Aiton, who, with Nash as designer, went on to plant the gardens at Buckingham Palace and St James's Park. Nash's scheme was laid out in accordance with the new principles of naturalistic landscaping. Circuitous paths followed the contours of shaped beds landscaped with seasonal herbaceous plants and clusters of shrubs and trees. Brighton and the surrounding downland was somewhat lacking in greenery and trees. The mature shrubs, plants and the existing grand avenues of elms in the royal gardens would have therefore provided a welcome sanctuary. This luxury was only afforded the Regency nobility, however. The Pavilion Gardens were not opened to the public until after the Royal Pavilion had been sold to the town, in 1850. And even then, a range of bylaws were applied to prohibit smoking, intoxication, begging, games, and ragged or offensive attire!
The Restoration
Over the years, Nash's elegant landscaping had gradually been destroyed, initially by uncontrolled tree growth and Victorian mass bedding, and later by Tarmac roads. It is only through years of painstaking research and restoration that the jewel in the crown of Brighton's Regency history is once more fully integrated with its original setting. The restoration scheme was based on two primary sources: the original accounts for the Royal Pavilion Gardens, which document the number and species of all plants delivered by the nursery, though, alas, no planting scheme; and works by local Regency botanist and landscape gardener Henry Phillips.
All trees and shrubs used in the newly restored gardens are known to have been introduced to England before 1830, and the shrubberies contain examples of nearly all the species mentioned in the nursery bills. Where the herbaceous plants were only specified by quantity rather than variety, the closest modern equivalents have been used. During the original Regency planting, many of these specimens would have been new introductions, imported by professional plant hunters from around the world. Flowers such as the peony, depicted on the Chinese wallpapers inside the Royal Pavilion, could now be seen for the first time in their natural form.
Henry Phillips’s instructive texts form the basis of the restoration planting scheme. In Sylva Florifera, written in 1823, Phillips describes how the shrubberies should be planted using ‘painterly’ devices, just as an artist would compose a picture: for example planting grey or bluish-leaved plants beyond or between yellow or bright green shrubs to give the impression of a receding vista. Phillips’s shrubberies also depended on the ‘selection of trees and shrubs, which succeed each other in blossoming throughout the year or on fruits which ornament them’. Today's layout reflects this succession, with year-round growth to create a garden for all seasons.
The Gardens Today
Today the Royal Pavilion Gardens – one of the first major Regency garden restorations in Britain – are back to their former splendour, conforming as closely as possible to Nash’s original vision. Once more, the serpentine drive describes a sinuous curve from the William IV gate and over the western lawns to a turning circle in front of the porte cochère. Irregular beds of mixed shrubs and flowers of varying heights border the winding paths and drives, with the intervals between them offering a succession of snapshots of the Pavilion’s exotic vista. Even the length of the grass on the Pavilion lawns has been kept as if hand-scythed, in keeping with the intended imitation of a forest glade.
The gardens are managed today by a professional Head Gardener – supported by a group of garden volunteers. They are maintained under strict organic guidelines. The result is that the gardens have become a rare haven for wildlife in the centre of the city. Part of the reason why Regency gardens fell out of fashion is that, left unchecked and poorly managed, the different layers of planting, as they competed for light and space, became an indistinct Victorian blur. Thankfully, much of the time and energy today is spent retaining this subtle interplay between the groups of shrubs, trees and flowers. The result is testament to John Nash's original scheme, and a glorious backdrop to one of the world's most distinctive architectural icons.
Telephone (01273) 290900 Fax (01273) 292871
Royal Pavilion, Libraries and Museums, Brighton & Hove City Council BN1 1EE
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